Modern computing devices are used for a wide variety of purposes, many of which involve data that is private, proprietary or sensitive to the user or to other entities. For example, devices such as smart phones are often used to store financial data such as account numbers, payment credentials, biometric data such as fingerprints, PINs and passwords. In addition, computing devices commonly store encryption keys and the like, for example, for secure communication and document storage or for playback of copy-protected media. Such data is valuable to users and to other entities such as software developers, enterprises, financial institutions and media owners and publishers.
Protection of sensitive data (in particular, against unauthorized access to such data) is important. Allowing for fast and convenient access to data for legitimate purposes by both users and software developers is also important for providing a broad feature set of devices.
It is becoming increasingly common for devices to be used in multiple modes. For example, computing devices may be used in portable or handheld modes and in desktop modes. Different sets of functionality and different user interfaces may be desired in each mode. In addition, users may use a single device for both personal and professional purposes. Enterprises may wish to segregate data from personal data of employees, and employees may likewise wish to maintain separation for privacy reasons.